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Reed

The alien shuttle had just left Enterprise, heading for A'Er'Orl, ferrying within it a somber Human and seemingly placid Vulcan. The shuttle's tube-like design reflected the deep sea origin of its makers. Reed pushed away the thought that it looked like a shark. The Eylordenes were not shark-like in their appearance and he had enough trouble with the idea of going down to a water planet without his mind turning them into the monsters in the closet. He had enough trouble with his mind, period. As the shuttle neared the planet it was anything but still, whirling around a maelstrom of thoughts.

Section 31 had taught him never to trust appearances. Appearances were that the shuttle'd been gobbled by some sea monster. Whatever happened, there'd been no distress call. And there were no traces. How could that be? Had it really been swallowed by a life form endogenous to A'Er'Orl? Did the Ia'O actually exist? Or were they an invention of the Eylordenes to hide the truth? They'd said Enterprise was plugged into their database, but how did he know for sure? The whole thing could've been made up...

If there were no Ia'O, then why did the Eylordenes make the shuttle disappear? What did they have to gain from it? It wasn't to prevent ceremonies from happening, they were going to happen anyway. The Federation had made sure of that, sending dignitary replacements including yours truly.

Perhaps that was the key. To have T'Pol and him attend... It seemed hardly likely. The Eylordenes couldn't have known he was afraid of water, and no matter how special he figured himself to be, he was but a speck on the face of the universe. No, there was nothing to be gained by anyone to force him to attend. As for T'Pol...

He glanced at T'Pol. The Vulcan smooth features revealed nothing, but she was the other unwilling participant in this charade. Did the Eylordenes have something in reserve for Vulcan? No, that would be too remote. Injuring one Vulcan wouldn't gain anyone anything. Even if she was far more special among her people than he was, T'Pol wasn't so highly placed that it would unsettle the seat of Vulcan. Governments played a longer game. That wasn't it.

So it wasn't about one water-adverse English sailor or one well-known Vulcan... He looked out the window, at the dark velvet of stars, at the fast approaching greenish atmosphere. Back to square one. What did the shuttle disparition gain the Eylordenes? Nothing but embarrassment... The public knowledge that there were huge unsavory carnivores deep within its seas. Hardly a boon for tourism... Nothing to gain there.

Unless they were trying to hide something... but what?... A hand absent-mindedly to rub his lower lip. If they were trying to hide something... it could explain the rush... asking for replacement so quickly... Perhaps they thought there wouldn't be any replacement... And then... then they could reject the Federation because of the perceived snub, and... and ally themselves to enemies of the Federation? Perhaps that was it... But it didn't make sense. The Eylordenes made it clear they wanted to join the Federation...

Unless... there were two factions on A'Er'Orl, one pro-Federation and one trying to prevent the planet's adhesion... If that was the case, he and T'Pol were at risk. Highly at risk. He needed to be on his guard for both of them.

"We're coming into the spaceport," the alien announced.

Reed looked up, jerked out of his reverie by the metallic rendering of the word 'spaceport'. Another Eylordene word that the UT couldn't translate. It made sense, their world evolved in water, most of their vocabulary would be water-based. He looked out the windows, wondering how Hoshi would have translated it.

And did a double-take. Water as far as the eye could see. That planet! He quickly coughed into his hands to hide the dry heave that just shook him. So much water. He swallowed. And gulped again, trying to maintain control over his stomach. Somwewhere within him a childish voice was screaming in abject terror, curved in a corner of the shuttle, hands over eyes, trying not to see the horror that lay ahead. But he was an adult now, a grown man, chief security officer aboard the Enterprise. He couldn't give any hint of the terror animating him. Or give in to it.

The shuttle kept going down, the water huge and wavy and swirming and whirling, and the child within him howling his distress. He wiped his hands on the inside of his pockets, feeling the water drip down the lining. Who'd ever known one could sweat from one's palms... He couldn't pull his hands out now, there'd be big fat drops of sweat dripping all over the floor. Sweat was water. Water. Water everywhere.

Stop it, Malcolm! His mind went to the pills that Phlox had given him. He couldnt take one now, not with his stomach in his mouth. He'd have to take the container out of his pocket, hands dripping with sweat. Everyone would notice. And then they'd know he was weak. He couldn't do it.

He snuck a peek at T'Pol, relieved for her dispassionate composure. At least she wasn't going to pieces because of the water. No sweat dripping along the sides of her poker face. Hear that, Malcolm, that's how you should be, that's the image you want to project to the world. He mentally grabbed onto that image like onto a life buoy, trying to mirror her stance, her absence of emotion, her serene and detached cool. So long as she was standing there, impassive, he would be fine, his internal panic kept in check.

xxx

T'Pol

An unfortunate side effect of the Eylordene dispatching a shuttle was that its atmosphere was set for their species and she had to use the breathing apparatus as soon as they left Enterprise. The issue was not one of supply. Doctor Phlox was confident about his ability to produce enough crystals. The issue was physical. The nose filters were smelly and unpleasant and the humidity made the air, even filtered, enough to choke on. The crystals' acrid taste added to the discomfort of the nose filters and the difficulty of inhaling thick air through thin tubes, making the entire experience one which she would rather not repeat. Except that she had to repeat it, the alternative being even more unpleasant.

More importantly, the overall unpleasantness made meditation difficult, if not impossible. Without meditation, she could not communicate with Trip. She needed to quickly get used to the physical discomfort. She closed her eyes, trying to mentally isolate every point of friction and train her body to breathe smoothly, in spite of the unpleasant and foreign equipment. The faster she integrated the disruption, the faster she would be able to meditate again.

While she willed her body to submission, her mind remained focused on the days ahead. The Eylordenes had agreed to let Lieutenant Reed participate in the search for Shuttle One. In spite of Dr. Phlox's insistence to the contrary, she did not require his assistance with the breathing apparatus. No matter how awkward of inconvenint, she could change the canisters herself. This could free the lieutenant to spend more time in search of the shuttle, which was their top priority.

Balanced against that priority was the fact that she may need to relay information to Enterprise without using Eylordene channels. Something that her chief of security would better be able to do if he maintained freedom of movement. She would need the lieutenant to check back at regular intervals. The possibility that the Eylordenes were misleading them could not be discounted.

One must not overlook the strangeness of the situation. Shuttle One had disappeared with all hands aboard en route to the induction ceremonies. The Eylordenes claimed that the shuttle had been consumed by an endogenous life form, a known risk and yet one that they had not communicated to Enterprise. Creating false data entries was well within their technical abilities. Shuttle One existed in a dimension where and it could or not have been eaten by the Ia'O, and where it could or not have disappeared. It could also have been captured, by the Eylordenes or by an unknown faction.

To what advantage? The only known outcome was a possibly prejudicial delay in the induction ceremonies. The delay had been avoided when replacements were provided. Yet the Eylordenes had insisted on different replacements, knowing that their atmosphere was toxic to Vulcans and knowing the lieutenant's aversion to water - that was in his file, it would be illusory to think that the aliens were not aware of it. Was that part of their computation? Did they expect to be turned down and thus freed to seek alliances with other worlds? Or did they compute that the risk profile of these replacements was such that there might still be a delay in the ceremonies...

"We're coming into the spaceport," the alien announced.

The metallic rendering of 'spaceport' was a signal that it was an approximate translation of the alien word. T'Pol didn't react to the suboptimal performance of the UT. She had adjusted to its parameters and the uncertain translation was within the expected variance. She dispassionately looked out the window. The shuttle was sweeping over the water in a graceful curve, skimming the top of a roiling dark green ocean. Water extended as far as the eye could see.

So much liquid was foreign, vaguely nausea-inducing. T'Pol looked fixedly ahead, her pupils enormous. Her wrist monitor showed a spike-like increase in crystal consumption as she started breathing more rapidly. She engaged in sub-mindfulness routines to try and control her breathing. The sense of unease was becoming physical, the air clammy against her skin and her hair. The ambient humidity affected the air waves, adding an almost painful subfrequency to all noises. She remained ramrod straight, immobile, her eyes the only reflection of her deep sense of unease. Each breath sounded cavernous in her ears, though nobody else on the shuttle seemed to be aware of it.

The water came closer as the shuttle dipped and she blinked nervously twice. Logic would dictate the shuttle would safely reach its end destination. And yet her feet were pressed inside her boots, anchoring thenselves into the floor, her hands were nestled around each other, clinging to the solidity of her skeleton.

She blinked again. There was no reason to be on hyper alert. Inevitably, the induction ceremonies would come to an end.

And then she could leave the planet.

xxx